IPv6

Comparison to IP v4
 Simpler header format
 Expanded addressing capability
 Improved support for extensions and options
 Flow labeling capability
 Enhanced support for Authentication and privacy

Header format

 Version = 6
 Traffic class comparable to v4 ToS
 The 8-bit Traffic Class field in the IPv6 header is available for use by originating nodes and/or forwarding routers to
identify and distinguish between different classes or priorities of IPv6 packets
 Two classes of traffic
1. Congestion controlled
 Values of traffic class field ranges from 0-7 for fixed priority class
 Traffic limits its bandwidth requirement in response to congestion
2. Non congestion controlled
 Min delay
 Discarding of packets is not desirable
 Retransmissions are generally not possible
 Value of traffic class field ranges from 8-15
 Classes are based on how much quality of received data is affected by discarding of packets.
 Treat all packets with the same Flow Label equally
 Support QoS and fair bandwidth allocation
 If a source does not implement flow label, it will set the field to ‘0’
 If an IPv6 node is not providing flow-specific treatment, it MUST ignore the field when receiving or forwarding a
packet
 Payload length does not include header –limits packets to 64KB
 There is a “jumbogram option”
 Hop limit = TTL field
 Next header combines options and protocol
 If there are no options then NextHeader is the protocol field

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  Options are “extension header” that follow IP header
 Ordered list of tuples – 6 common types
1. Quickly enable a router to tell if the options are meant for it
 Types
1. Hop by Hop options
 Optional information that must be examined by every node along the path
2. Routing
 Used to list one or more intermediate nodes to be visited along the path
3. Fragmentation
 Used by IPv6 source to send a packet larger than would fit in the path’s MTU to its destination
4. Destination options
 Optional information that must be examined only by packet’s destination node
5. Authentication
 Extensions to support authentication and data integrity
6. Encapsulating security payload
 Guards against eves dropping
 Two modes
 Transparent
 Only the payload is encrypted and the base header and other ext headers
remain the same
 Tunneling
 Whole packet, including base header, is encrypted and encapsulated within a
new base header
IPv6 Address Space and Notation

 Allocation is classless
 Prefixes specify different uses (unicast, multicast, anycast)
 Anycast: send packets to nearest member of a group
 Prefixes can be used to map v4 to v6 space and visa-versa
 Lots of flexibility with 128 bits!
 ~1500 address/sqft of the earths surface
 Standard representation is set of eight 16-bit values separated by colons
 Eg. 47CD:1234:3200:0000:0000:4325:B792:0428
 If there are large number of zeros, they can be omitted with series of colons
 Eg. 47CD:1234:3200::4325:B792:0428
 Address prefixes (slash notation) are the same as v4
 Eg. FEDC:BA98:7600::/40 describes a 40 bit prefix

Address prefix assignments

0000 0000 Reserved

0000 001 Reserved for NSAP (non-IP addresses used by ISO)

0000 010 Reserved for IPX (non-IP addresses used by IPX)

001 Unicast Address Space

1111 1110 10 Link Local Use addresses

1111 1110 11 Site Local Use addresses

1111 1111 Multicast addresses

Unicast assignment in IPv6

 Unicast address assignment is similar to CIDR
 Unicast addresses start with 001

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  Host interfaces belong to subnets
 Addresses are composed of a subnet prefix and a host identifier
 Subnet prefix structure provides for aggregation into larger networks
 Provider-based plan
 Idea is that the Internet is global hierarchy of network
 Three levels of hierarchy – region, provider, subscriber
 Goal is to provide route aggregation to reduce BGP overhead
 A provider can advertise a single prefix for all of its subscribers
 Region = 13 bits, Provider = 24 bits, Subscriber = 16 bits, Host = 80 bits
 Eg. 001,regionID,providerID,subscriberID,subnetID,intefaceID
 Anycast addresses are treated just like unicast addresses
 It’s up to the routing system to determine which server is “closest”

Link local addresses

 Intended only for communications within the segment of a local network (a link) or a point-to-point connection that a host is
connected to
 Link-local addresses for IPv4 are defined in the address block 169.254.0.0/16. In IPv6, they are allocated with the fe80::/10
prefix

Site local address

 These addresses have the scope of an entire site, or organization. They allow addressing within an organization without need for
using a public prefix. Routers will forward datagrams using site-local addresses within the site, but not outside it to the public
Internet

Transition from IP v4 to IP v6
 Dual stack operation – v6 nodes run in both v4 and v6 modes and use version field to decide which stack to use
 Nodes can be assigned a v4 compatible v6 address
 Allows a host which supports v6 to talk v6 even if local routers only speak v4
 Signals the need for tunneling
 Add 96 0’s (zero-extending) to a 32-bit v4 address – eg. ::10.0.0.1
 Nodes can be assigned a v4 mapped v6 address
 Allows a host which supports both v6 and v4 to communicate with a v4 hosts
 Add 2 bytes of 1’s to v4 address then zero-extend the rest – eg. ::ffff:10.0.0.1
 Tunneling is used to deal with networks where v4 router(s) sit between two v6 routers
 Simply encapsulate v6 packets and all of their information in v4 packets until you hit the next v6 router

Recommended reading
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757359(WS.10).aspx